


Latticework

by softcorescorn



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Fever, Sneezing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 16:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13617690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softcorescorn/pseuds/softcorescorn
Summary: Post-post-apocalyptic sickfic set in a time when things are just starting to regrow. (SS for HeyMurphy from January 2017!)





	Latticework

Tamar wasn’t exactly sure when the bakery had completed the transition from “legitimate business” to legitimate business, but when the “health inspector” had stopped by that morning to rap disdainfully on the false wall and ask a lot of questions about the spring-loaded drawer under the pastry case, it was all she could do not to laugh. She couldn’t blame him-- the shop looked suspicious because it  _was_ \-- but she almost felt sorry for him when, after nearly an hour-and-a-half of prodding, measuring, and being bullied-from-afar by the church ladies at the corner table who had refused to leave during his visit, he finally stormed out, haughty and red in the face and soon-to-be-forced to file a report saying that the bakery on 12th with the trapdoor in the break room was really, truly just a bakery with a trapdoor, honestly, see for yourself.  
  
Tamar would’ve bitten off every fingernail and then some during one of these garden-variety raids when she was younger, back when her old crew first leased the place. Even  _she_  found it hard to believe that the most scandalous thing the inspector turned up was a mangled blueberry pie. (She’d botched the lattice-top that morning, but baked it anyway, hoping to foist it on someone else by the end of the night. Half-price.)  
  
The longer the inspector lingered, the louder the chorus of disdain from the old ladies at the corner table. They were all but wailing as he huffed past, letting the door bang behind him. They crooned about what a waste of time and government funding this whole thing was, and  _how ludicrous_  to hassle someone trying to make an honest living in these uncertain times.  
  
“Unbelievable,” one of them had spat. Tamar could feel those eyes boring through horn-rimmed glasses into the back of her head.  
  
“I recorded the whole thing, honey!” another piped up, waving a glowing screen in the air like a tiny beacon of solidarity. Tamar thanked her politely, but kept pretending to be very busy rearranging the counter. She pressed her palm over her mouth to stifle a grin. It was just too much. If only he’d dropped by a year sooner.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
It had taken some effort to force the door shut after the last holiday patrons had trickled out, rowdy and unbound by time. Tamar was still adjusting to the entrepreneurial life, but it was a change of pace to have people staying so late-- she eyed the empty shelves and tried to decide if she was feeling grateful or resentful. Still, she didn’t have to lie to her old friends anytime they slunk in and nudged her in hushed tones-- “no, but  _really_ , how haveyou  _been_  here?”-- She always had to reassure them several times, with varying degrees of impoliteness, that she really did find the warm, dull repetition of living in one place genuinely uplifting. The first twenty-eight years of her life had been a  mad-dash through the peripheral vision of cutthroat traders and checkpoint security. Nothing could be more exciting than “boring” to her now.  
  
“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it!” she’d bellow. It was becoming her new favorite cliche, if only for the spirited snorts and eyerolls it usually elicited from her favorite nomads.  
  
Most of them ate their words when she play-threatened to turn them in. They’d pretend to squeeze her for a bed and a hot meal, and she’d pantomime being put-out, with a devilish gleam in her eye as they talked all night, their raucous voices thundering up the heavy wooden stairs of her basement apartment, through the hatch that acted as her front door, and out the front of the bakery facade where they dissipated on the bitter, northern wind. They’d interrupt each other, telling a single story in tandem, until no one had the strength to speak anymore. They’d drift off to sleep, and everyone would disappear by daybreak, leaving Tamar to return to taking morning bun orders for the radio station that had just opened back up across the street.  
  
She wasn’t sure what felt more dreamlike-- her former life, or this one. They seemed to run in opposite directions. On the rare day that they intersected, everything felt so askew, but in a harmless way. Like she was a character on one of those old TV shows, caught in a crossover.  
  
Tamar forced her full body-weight against the door of the shop.The insulation underneath had been taped and re-taped more times than Tamar could count, and it always swelled in the snow. She leaned hard on the handle and a last rush of cold air screamed through the dark emptiness of the bakery, like a wild animal seizing its last chance to slip in through the crack. Finally, the door slid into alignment, she keyed the heavy, bronze lock, took one last look at the darkened shop and headed for the patch of warm light seeping out of the break room floor.  
  
The lock was a bluff, before. It had come with the space, but they hadn’t bothered to replace it. No one assumes you have anything worth stealing if you’re hiding it behind an analogue lock.  
  
As she descended into the hot, yolky glow of the lamplight downstairs, Tamar heard the faint tick and thump of what she really, truly hoped was just the pipes settling and not vermin taking up residence in the bakery walls. She often left the basement lights on after dark. A subterranean apartment could get awfully gloomy, at any time of year, but especially in the winter. It made sense to keep a light on, but it was strange to have reached a point where these sorts of small luxuries felt routine. She trailed her hand absently along the wooden railing, the gaudy black-and-white checkered flooring of her kitchen coming into view below. It had been worth it to make the place look as little like a bunker as possible, in her opinion, even if everyone else complained that that what she dubbed “retro” would only ever be “ugly”.  
  
Tamar stopped dead.  
  
She’d heard it again. Not the pipes. Not mice. She tightened her grip on the railing. Footsteps. Past the shabby, taupe couch in her makeshift living room, past the row of heavy, black pans lining the kitchen wall. Behind the closed door at the end of the hallway. Distinctly human.  
  
Unbeknownst to any of Tamar’s neighbors-- including the church ladies who knew that she lived under the store and begged her on the regular to try to get more sunlight than _that_ \-- there was a second entrance to the basement. She could count on one hand the number of people who knew about it. None of them were in town now.  
  
One foot and then the other slipped out of her work shoes. She abandoned them on the stairs and swept across the length of the kitchen, noiseless as a wraith across the tiles, pausing only to carefully, purposefully pluck what could best be described as a poor-man’s mace from a hook on the wall.  
  
It was really just a bat with a few dozen twisted nails poking angrily out of the end. It felt so cartoonish to threaten someone with a glorified nail bat, but she’d kept it as a prop to lend credence to her baker persona in the early days-- displayed it on the wall of her apartment, the way someone who had never felt a real weapon in their hands might.  
  
Usually it just hung there, looking dangerous and sort of comical, but never really intended for use. A traveling artist had given it to her on a sweltering midsummer’s night. They’d started having festivals here again, and when people have gone so long without a proper holiday, they tend to get really invested. The artist, swaying in their seat, had stiffed Tamar out of at least half a cherry cake by the time she realized she wasn't getting paid.  
 

 _“It’s an investment,”_  they’d said, dully, offering her the unsightly weapon,  _“next time some good-for-nothing like me tries to run out on their tab, you’ll be ready.”_  
  
She tightened her grip on the handle, took one long, slow breath and held it, winding up as she saw the shadow of movement creep under the door.   
  
She’d aim for the knees first-- she was a piemaker these days, after all.  
  
The door swung open. Fast, familiar. "Not the way someone who was sneaking around would open it," was what she’d told herself in the moment. "I’ll never learn to think on my feet," was what she’d tell herself afterwards.  
  
Whether it was the right or wrong thing to do, Tamar hesitated, and found herself staring up at the ashen face of a sharp-featured, sullen-looking man. He raised both hands in surrender, a jangling keyring looped around the middle finger of his left hand. He eyed her, eyed the bat, then eyed her again, with a look that was more subdued curiosity than concern for his own safety. Which was just as well-- if he  _had_  looked worried, she might not have recognized him.  
  
“Je _sus_  CHRIST,  _Soren_ \--” Tamar heaved a sigh of relief from the very pit of her stomach, “I thought someone from that pushy eight-top found the trapdoor,” her arms ached from the unreleased tension of holding back that swing, but all she truly  _felt_  was every muscle in her face tugging with fond recognition. Tamar found herself beaming before the adrenaline rush had even worn off. “Thank goodness. No customers snooping around,  _just_  the land-pirate.”  
  
Soren cleared his throat behind one forearm-- an oddly irrational gesture of courtesy-- and waved the hand that was full of keys at Tamar’s nail bat with a careless jingle. “You can still hit me with that,” his voice was low and murky when he spoke, sounding more like it was being dragged out of him than used intentionally. “-- might perk me up a little, at this point.”   
  
In the rush of emotion, Tamar had forgotten that she was still brandishing a weapon at him and dropped it hastily with a loud clatter and the foul screech of a stray nail head against the kitchen tile. You could’ve called, and You could’ve come upstairs and told me you were in town, were both on the tip of her tongue, but a roiling swell of sympathy that started in her chest and washed hotly over her face swept all the reproachfulness out of her.  
  
“Are you okay?” she asked.  
  
He gave a noncommittal grumble that could have passed for a “yes” or a “no”, but cleared his throat a second time, before speaking again, “I’ll be out of your hair soon.”  
  
Tamar lingered in the hallway. She watched him cross the room and sidle up to the retrofitted pot-bellied stove in the kitchen. Of all the anachronisms in the basement-apartment, that might’ve been the weirdest one. None of them could remember if it came with the place, or if someone had hauled it in. It just sat there, looking weirdly sinister and out-of-place. Tamar had always liked it, but everyone else acted like it was some huge, hot beetle taking up valuable space in their hideout.  
  
No one but her had touched it in a long time, but of course Soren still remembered how to light it. When he bent low to fiddle with the knobs, she could see the curve of his shoulderblades through his soft, grey shirt. Soren was one of those people who always wore a lot of layers. In all the time they’d spent together, hurtling through the desert on this low-risk supply run or that dodgy escort mission, she’d barely seen him remove his jacket. Seeing him now in a soft, simple shirt that fell loose at the neckline felt more intimate than if he’d appeared in the doorway stark naked, somehow.  
  
A flicker of blue flames sprung up beneath the grating and he straightened up, rubbing a knuckle absently at the side of his nose. “I should have knocked, I’m sorry,” he half-turned away to muffle a series of shallow coughs into his sleeve, sounding dissatisfied, like he could only spare himself a few under her critical glance.  
  
Tamar shrugged. “It’s technically your house, so…”  
  
Soren shook his head as though she’d said something truly perplexing, “It’s yours now.” He swung one of the cabinet doors open, rummaging through the pile of mismatched pots and pans. “I saw the sign in the window," he added.  
  
“What?”  
  
“‘Now Hiring’.”  
  
“Oh. Oh, yeah--” It was out-of-character for him to make small talk; Tamar was caught off-guard. Suddenly self-conscious of hovering in the hallway, she wound around the corner and sat heavily on the patchy couch past the end of the counter. “Yeah. Yeah, things have been going really well. I’m thinking it’d be nice to take on some help. Y’know-- I think it’s been really good for the neighborhood, too. You can make fun of me for that, but, it’s just-- things are sort of coming alive again up here.”  
  
“I won’t. But congratulations,” he said, pulling an iron kettle from the top shelf. Tamar chuckled. She hadn’t meant to, but sometimes he just sounded so damn somber, she couldn’t tell if he was joking and she couldn’t help but laugh to break the tension, even if he wasn't. He peered at her briefly over his shoulder for that, but didn’t seem put-out.  
  
“What about you?” Tamar picked up brightly. “You were halfway to the flats, last I saw you…”  
  
Soren was quiet for a moment, holding the kettle under the faucet, watching the swirling water fill the bottom with a distant look in his eye.  
  
“All the w _ay there_ \--” his voice wavered precariously, “and all the way back. It turned  _out to be a real-- whh… hhh'_  i _hh_ \-- ” the last few words piled up on each other, breathy and urgent, like they only counted if he could get them all out before he actually sneezed. His right hand left the faucet and pinched the bridge of his nose. A tense shudder ran through him as he suppressed two sneezes, still clutching the kettle shakily in his other hand. A deep, trembling exhale, just shy of a moan, escaped him afterwards.  
  
“All the way  _back?_  We’re not on the train line,” Tamar piped up suspiciously, “how far did you have t-?”  
  
Soren gasped again, so suddenly and sharply that Tamar thought he might’ve bumped the stove. She jumped up reflexitively, hovering in an uncertain half-sit by the couch for a moment until he shut the faucet off in exasperation and let the kettle drop with a bang into the sink basin. Tamar watched his brow tense and furrow as he scowled sidelong at the corner of the room. He was clutching the edge of the table now, his breath coming in stuttering gasps. She was about to ask what on earth was wrong, when he buried his face urgently in the crook of his arm and all but collapsed into a dreadful sneezing fit.  
  
“eh _’ISCCH_ uh!... ih _h_ … heh- _ISSH **iuh**!_...  _hehh_ \--  _nnd_ ’ _ **TSSCHiuh**!_ ” He had turned away from her, bracing his elbow with his free hand.  
  
Tamar sank back into the couch when she realized what was happening. She stood up again when it didn’t stop. “How did you manage to catch a cold in the middle of the desert?” she smirked, but regretted it instantly. Still caught in the throes of it, he hadn’t really heard what she’d said. She was happy for the opportunity to retract the question; now wasn’t the time to tease him, she decided.  
  
When the fit tapered off at last, he waited, back still turned, drawing a few slow, tentative breaths, not quite convinced that it was over and certainly not looking like it had granted him any relief. Resignedly, he slipped a handkerchief from his pocket and folded it over his nose.  
  
The kitchen felt very silent for a moment. The faucet squeaked back on.  His shoulders relaxed, but the tension between his eyebrows stayed.  
  
“Here--” Tamar committed to standing, finally, and rounded the counter. “You sit down. I’ll do this.”  
  
She caught his bleary gaze and cut him off as he was winding up to protest. “Hey, hey--  _you_  just became a guest in  _my_  house while we were having this talk,” she offered up a toothy grin, “Now that this is my house, what kind of of host would I be...?”  
  
Even through the veneer of fatigue and frustration, that pulled a little smile out of him. It wasn’t much-- just a glimmer, just a crinkle of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, but that was enough.  
  
Tamar had often joked that dealing in hot parts and soft drugs had done wonders to cure her crippling shyness. She tried to only joke to  _herself_  about this. It was funny, but not “ha-ha, tell-the-neighbors”. Not the kind of self-improvement people really wanted to congratulate you for, once they knew the full backstory.  
  
When the old crew had first taken her in, she’d been petrified to speak to Soren or almost anyone, and now she was literally pushing him around his own kitchen like a piece of furniture.  
  
It was silly, in retrospect, to think of how much she’d worried. He’d been the first one to encourage her when she didn’t want to speak during negotiations, or froze up at the thought of doing a solo supply run.  _“Take no prisoners, Tamar,”_  he’d say in that over-serious way, where she could never, ever tell if he was kidding or if he was just _like_  that, but he’d say it the same way whether they were running reconnaissance under the shadow of circling buzzards or pumping gas in the wasteland where no one cared about gas anymore, so it felt like it had to be some kind of private joke.  
  
Tamar listened to the water boiling behind her back.  
 

Soren had folded his arms and tipped his head back against the cushion almost as soon as he sat down, like his body had barely been holding itself together and she’d just needed to say one word to grant it permission to dissolve. Even out of the harsh, yellow glare of the overhead kitchen lamp, Tamar noticed the flush that had crept into the hollows of his cheeks. How his lips were lightly parted, like he was having trouble breathing out of his nose. The little crease between his eyebrows that never quite left, but seemed more pronounced today. She’d never seen him so flat-out. It was a little surreal, like she’d just watched an empty suit of armor up and shiver. He pulled himself upright, out of his slouch suddenly. She was ready to look away at a moment’s notice, to spare him the indignity of being assessed, but his eyes only pinched shut tighter as he dragged the handkerchief from his pocket, a little more hastily this time.   
  
“Hihh-- IGH _SHHiuh_ \--”  
  
He only sneezed once, but it curled him at the stomach and left him reeling. He leaned his head back against the couch with an exasperated thump. The soft moan that passed over his lips raised the hair on the back of Tamar’s neck. She watched him settle back against the cushion, and eyed the ghost of a scar that ran along his lower lip and down his chin before it disappeared into three days’ worth of stubble.  
  
It had been split-- how many summers ago now?-- it had been split when they first met. When she was too intimidated to say more than a few words at a time to him, and then spent the rest of the night, in the pitch-dark after the campfire was out, worrying about how he’d interpreted those few words.  
  
She never really found out how it had been split-- that was how he’d always explained things in those days. “Been split.” In the past tense, with no subject. The “who” and “why” dispersed in the air like a heavy vapor-- visible but vague. The more days slipped by, the less compelled she felt to ask.  
  
“Bless you…” she offered, tentatively.  
  
He peered over at her, distantly, like she might’ve been a mirage and he was only dreaming of being back in this drafty house. Like he might wake up at any minute, sprawled out and sweltering in a cabin on the flatlands.  
  
“Thank you,” he’d murmured, just the same, sounding truly grateful for it. Tamar felt a sharp pang of protectiveness hit her like an arrow. His eyes were swimming and he looked like every ounce of him itched or ached. The kettle shrieked steam just behind her back and she turned away to rummage for tea in the cupboard. There wasn’t much; tea hadn’t quite made a comeback in this part of town. She pulled a big, cardboard box from the back of the shelf. It was unmarked, with only the silhouette of a blue jay stamped onto the lid. A few rows of teabags still lined the bottom of the box. It was bitter, ration-quality stuff, but she figured he wouldn’t really mind.  
  
Steaming mug in hand, Tamar crossed the room. She reached out and gently touched Soren’s shoulder. He opened his eyes, not startled exactly, but disoriented, certainly.

  
She pressed the mug into his hands. He wrapped them both around it, slowly, automatically like it was just muscle memory. She swept the hair off his forehead before pressing her palm against it.

“I’m surprised you didn’t melt all the snow on my doorstep on your way in,” she sighed and withdrew her hand, the heat from his skin still lingering on her fingertips by the time she spoke again. She was biting back a million questions about where he’d been since they last laid eyes on each other, but looking at him now, hunched gratefully over the wisps of hot steam drifting up from the rim of the mug, she swallowed her curiosity and sunk with a sigh onto the cushion beside him.  
  
“How long have you been sick?” she asked instead.  
  
He set the mug down after a few tentative sips. “A couple of days,” he conceded. She tried not to imagine him too clearly, huddled in other people’s doorways, or trying for a tense, half-sleep in one of the crumbling apartments on the outskirts of town where no one lived anymore and you could see the pale, winter sunlight through the walls.  
  
Tamar extracted herself from the couch and padded down the hallway. She checked the locks on the rear door, twice, out of routine only, and knelt to collect the bat still abandoned on the floor. She looped it over the hook and took a final look around before cutting the main lights. Then, as an afterthought, she stripped all of the blankets haphazardly from her own bed, and dragged them into the main hall, a few corners trailing on the floor behind her.  
  
She sat back down and threw the blankets unceremoniously over the both of them. They sat together in silence for a little while, interrupted only by the occasional sniffle or subdued sneeze. He was still shivering a little, but she could tell some of the tension had left him.  
  
“Can you believe people are actually buying bread here?” was her last question of the night.  
  
She thought she heard him huff a hollow laugh in the dark, but she couldn’t be sure.


End file.
